Psa 123 | EE | STEP | This is a song for climbing. I lift up my eyes to you God. You are sitting in heaven.

Psalms 123

Servants of the LORD

This is a song for climbing.

1 I lift up my eyes to you God.

You are sitting in heaven. ^{▼▼123:1 Verse 1: Heaven is the home of God. We do not know where it is. The Hebrew word also means ‘the skies.’}

2 Our eyes look to the LORD our God:

· like men who are servants look to the hands of their masters;

· like a woman who is a servant looks to the hand of her mistress.

LORD, have mercy on us. ^{▼▼123:2 Verse 2: The notes on Psalm 120 explain the word ‘LORD.’ The psalmist (the person that wrote the psalm) has had enough of words that are not kind. He looks to God for help. He looks to God like a servant looked to the hand of his master or her mistress. A mistress would use their hand to tell a servant what to do. That is why he said this. A master or mistress was a women with authority.}

3 Have mercy on us, LORD, have mercy on us.

We have had more than enough contempt. ^{▼▼123:3 Verses 2–3: ‘Have mercy’ is an important Christian prayer. You say a prayer when you speak to God. To ask God to ‘have mercy’ means to ask him not to punish (hurt) you when you have done something wrong. Instead, you ask him to be kind and to forgive you. The notes on Psalm 130 explain the word ‘forgive.’}

4 We have had more than enough contempt

from the proud people that are oppressing us. ^{▼▼123:4 Verses 3-4: Sometimes people think and say things that are not kind about you. We call that ‘contempt.’ ‘Proud people’ think that they are more important than they are. When powerful people make poor people work for little or no money we call this ‘oppression.’ Also, when powerful people are cruel people, we call that ‘oppression’ too. In Psalm 123, the powerful people oppress the poor people.}